Page 208 - How to Create a Winning Organization

Wooden on Leadership
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wasn’t any different from the year before, when UCLA won a
championship, and the year before that, when UCLA won its
first title.
He didn’t turn into a raving maniac when we started los-
ing games. His demeanor was about the same, championship
season or not. No “woe is me”; never a word about bad breaks
and injuries.
He built great teams in practice. He was a “practice coach,”
and he conducted practices at a very high level. How you
practice is how you play is what he believed.
He was strict, but there was no sense of fear of him by play-
ers. We knew there was nothing personal in his criticism or
comments. What he did was always for the common good and
welfare of the team. We all knew that and wanted the same.
He taught that discipline is the mark of a good team. And
Coach Wooden was disciplined. And part of that meant keep-
ing emotions under control.
I don’t know that there was a “secret” to his success. It was
just those three things he stressed: fundamentals, condition,
and team spirit.
The drills he ran at UCLA were mostly the same drills I
had run back in high school—the very same drills. Coach
Wooden just did them more repetitively and with more speed
and precision. He just demanded a higher level of execution
when it came to fundamentals. There was no secret formula.
He was very intense, but not to the point of screaming or
pulling out his hair. Coach was dignified and didn’t let his
emotions show very much. But we all knew what was going
on in his mind.
He kept those emotions under control, but sometimes it
was right on the edge. The maddest I ever saw him was